How to Compose an SEO-Focused Content Brief
As an SEO Manager, you're responsible for growing your business's organic search traffic. You're working with your dev group on some technical improvements, however you notice a big piece of the opportunity lies with material. Your company has a content team, but you observe they're not utilizing keyword research study to notify their short articles. You have actually attempted to send them keyword concepts, however up until now, they haven't been responsive to your tips.
You know that you need material, but do not have the expertise or time to do it yourself, so you ask your network for recommendations and find yourself a freelance author. With little instruction to work off of, they produce content that misses out on the mark.
The service in both of these circumstances is a content quick Not all content briefs are developed equivalent.
As someone who lives with one foot in content and the other in SEO, I can shed some light on how to make your material briefs both detailed and cherished by your material team.
Let's begin by agreeing on some terminology.
What's a content brief?
A content brief is a set of guidelines to guide a writer on how to prepare a piece of content. That piece of material can be a post, a landing page, a white paper, or any variety of other efforts that require material.
Without a content quick, you run the risk of getting back content that does not fulfill your expectations. This will not only irritate your writer, but it'll also need more revisions, taking more of your time and money.
Generally, content briefs are written by someone in a surrounding field-- like demand generation, item marketing, or SEO-- when they require something specific. However, content groups generally don't simply sweat off of briefs. They'll likely have their own calendar and efforts they're driving (content is among those strange roles that requires to support practically every other department while likewise creating and executing by themselves work).
What makes a content brief "SEO-focused"?
An SEO-focused material quick is one among many kinds of content briefs. It's distinct in that the objective is to advise the author on developing content to target a specific search query for the function of earning traffic from the natural search channel.
What to include in your material brief.
Now that we understand SEO-focused material briefs in theory, let's enter into the nitty gritty. What info should we include in them?
1. Main query target and intent
It isn't an SEO-focused content short without a question target!
Utilizing a keyword research study tool like Moz Keyword Explorer, you can get countless keyword concepts that could be appropriate to your service.
So I type "retailing" into Keyword Explorer, add a couple more useful filters, and boom! Tons of keyword suggestions.
Select a keyword (check your existing content to ensure your team hasn't already composed on the topic yet) and utilize that as the "north star" query for your content brief.
I think it's likewise practical to include some intent information here. To put it simply, what might the searcher who's typing this inquiry into Google want? It's an excellent idea to search the question in Google yourself to see how Google is interpreting the intent.
If my keyword is "types of visual retailing," I can see from the SERP that Google presumes an informative intent, based on the truth that the URLs ranking are largely informative articles.
2. Format
Dovetailing perfectly off of intent is format. gold coast seo specialists In other words, how should we structure the content to give it the very best chance of ranking for our target inquiry?
To use the exact same keyword example, if I Google "types of visual merchandising," the top-ranking short articles contain lists.
You may notice that your target question returns results with a lot of images (common with queries including "inspiration" or "examples").
This much better assists the writer understand what content format is most likely to work best.
3. Topics to cover and associated concerns to address
Selecting the target inquiry helps the writer understand the "concept" of the piece, however stopping there indicates you risk composing something that does not comprehensively respond to the inquiry intent.
That's why I like to consist of a "topics to cover/ associated questions to respond to" section in my briefs. This is where I list out all the subtopics I have actually found that someone searching that question would most likely want to know.
To find these, I like to utilize techniques like:
Using a keyword research tool to reveal you questions connected to your main keyword that are concerns.
Looking at the People Also Ask box, if one exists, on the SERP your target inquiry sets off
Finding websites that rank in the leading spots for your target question, running them through a keyword research tool, and seeing what other keywords they likewise rank for
And while this isn't specifically search-related, in some cases I like to use a tool called Frequently Asked Question Fox to search online forums for threads that discuss my target query
You can likewise produce the summary yourself using your research study with all the H2s/H3s already composed. While this can work well with freelance writers, I have actually discovered some authors (especially internal material marketers) feel this is too prescriptive. Every author and content group is various, so all I can say is just utilize your best judgment.
4. Funnel stage
This is fairly comparable to intent, but I believe it's helpful to include as a different line product. To fill out this part of the content quick, ask yourself: "Is someone searching this term simply looking for info?
And here's how you can identify your response:
Top-of-funnel (TOFU or "issue aware") is a proper label if the query intent is informational/educational/inspirational.
Middle-of-funnel (MOFU or "service conscious") is a proper label if the question intent is to compare, evaluate options, or otherwise indicates that the searcher is already knowledgeable about your service.Bottom-of-funnel (BOFU or "service all set") is a suitable label if the question intent is to purchase or otherwise transform.
5. Audience sector
Who are you writing this for?
It seems like such a basic concern to answer, however in my experience, it's easy to forget!
When it pertains to SEO-focused content briefs, it's simple to assume the answer to this question is "for whoever is browsing this keyword!" What that stops working to respond to is who those searchers are and how they fit into your business's personas/ ideal client profile (ICP).
If you don't understand what those personalities are, ask your marketing team! They should have target market sectors readily offered to send you.
This will not just assist your authors better comprehend what they ought to be composing, but it likewise helps align you with the rest of the marketing department and assist them understand SEO's connection to their objectives (this is likewise an important component of getting buy-in, which we'll speak about a little later).
6. The objective action you want your readers to take
SEO is a means to an end. It's not just adequate to get your material ranking or perhaps to get it making clicks/traffic. For it to make an effect for your company, you'll want it to contribute to your bottom line.
That's why, when creating your content brief, you not only need to think about how readers will get to it, but what you desire them to do after.
This is a great opportunity to work with your material marketing and bigger marketing team to comprehend what actions they're attempting to drive visitors to take.
Here are some examples of call-to-actions (CTAs) you can include in your briefs:
Newsletter sign-ups
Gated possession downloads (e.g. totally free design templates, whitepapers, and ebooks).
Case studies.Free trials.
Request demonstration.Product listings.
In basic, it's best to utilize a CTA that's a natural next action based upon the intent of the article. If the piece is top-of-funnel, attempt a CTA that'll move them to the mid-funnel, like a case study.
7. Ballpark length.
I'm a firm follower that the length of any post need to be dictated by the topic, not approximate word counts. Nevertheless, it can be practical to offer a ballpark to avoid bringing a 500-word blog post to a 2,000-word fight.
One tool that can make creating a ballpark word count easier is Frase, which among other things, will reveal you the typical word count of pages ranking for your target question.
8. Internal and external link opportunities.
Given that you read the Moz blog, you're probably currently totally familiar with the importance of links. This info is typically left out of content briefs.
It's as easy as including these two line items:.
Pertinent material we should link out to. List out any URLs, especially on your own website, that could be natural fits to connect out to in this article.
Existing material that might connect to this new piece. List out any URLs on your website that discuss your subject so that, after your new piece is live, you can go back and consist of links in them to your brand-new piece.The 2nd item is particularly crucial, because including links to your new post can assist it get indexed and start ranking quicker. A quick way to discover internal link opportunities is to use the "website:" operator in Google.
The following search would show me all posts on the Moz blog that mention "content brief." These could be terrific sources of links to this blog post.
9. Rival material.
Search your target question and pull the top three-or-so ranking URLs for this area of your material quick. These are the pages you require to beat.
At danger of developing copycat content (material that's basically a re-spun version of the top-ranking articles), it's a great concept to advise your writer on how best to utilize these.
I like to include concerns like:.
What's our special point-of-view on this topic?
Do we have any special information we can pull on this topic?What professionals (internal or external) can we ask for quotes to consist of on this subject?
What graphics would make this more visually engaging than what our rivals have?You understand!
10. On-page SEO cheat sheet.
Something I constantly like to consist of in my briefs is some form of an "SEO cheat sheet"-- pointers and resources for assisting your writers with crucial on-page SEO components.
Here's an example of one I've utilized in the past:.
Some content teams are very bullish on SEO (companies like G2 and HubSpot come to mind), so the authors might not require much assistance in this location. For others, SEO is relatively new to them.
What to prevent when composing content briefs.
Sadly, "SEO" has ended up being a dirty word to lots of writers. Understanding why will assist us avoid the major risks that can lead to neglected briefs and interdepartmental tensions.Do not provide tips after that asset has actually been written.
When writing for search, we're producing the output. The keyword is the input. In other words, target inquiries are concerns to be responded to, not something to be packed into copy that's already been composed.
Google wants to rank material that addresses the query, not just repeats it on the page.
For this factor, I would prevent having an optimization step after your composing step. If you do not, you risk the material not matching the intent of the question, which indicates it has little-to-no likelihood of ranking, and you'll likewise likely distress your writers, who don't want to cheapen their editorially outstanding content by stuffing keywords into it.
Don't prefer keywords with high volume over high intent match.
I when saw a quick where the SEO Manager requested that the writer utilize a certain phrase instead of another expression since it had search volume while the other didn't.The issue? While relatively comparable, the keywords in fact had absolutely different intents.
Do not do this.
At best, targeting keywords purely for volume's sake can result in vanity traffic that never ever transforms. At worst, you'll be trying to fit a square peg in a round hole and most likely missing out on intent-match totally.
Don't blindly follow keyword tools.
Keyword tools are practical, but they're not best reflections of search need. Due to the fact that they're not always updated extremely frequently, you might wrongly think a query has no demand when in reality it has a ton.
A good example of this is COVID-19 related keywords. As a newly trending topic earlier this year, many keyword research study tools didn't register that they had any search volume, when in truth they did. If you would have blindly followed the tool, you might have missed out on the chance.
To resolve for this, you can use tools like Google Trends and even Google Search Console (if you have content on a trending topic or similar subject on your site already, you should have the ability to see impressions/interest spiking within a couple of days).
Do not instruct authors to "include these keywords" (particularly a certain variety of times).
When listing out the target query (or queries) in your material brief, it is necessary that we advise our writers that this is the primary question to address rather than this the word I require you to spray throughout the content.There's no magic number of times you can stick a keyword in your copy so that it ranks for that term. Rather, instruct your writers to focus on responding to the intent of the searcher's concern comprehensively.
Don't try to jam keywords into short articles that weren't meant for search discovery.
Organic search is not the only channel for content discovery. As someone coming from an SEO background, this took me a while to find out.
That indicates adding search content to your material calendar, not attempting to pack keywords into whatever on the calendar.
While it is necessary to get the on-page SEO fundamentals right (title tag, heading tags, links, etc.) for every single piece, not every piece provides itself well to natural search discovery.
For instance, if we only produced material based upon keywords that a tool informed us gets browsed a specific number of times per month, we 'd never ever discuss brand-new principles. It takes a lot of idea management off the table, as well as things like case research studies and interview/feature story pieces.
Organic search is powerful, but it's not whatever.
Tips for getting your content team bought in.
Even the very best content briefs will not make an impact if your material team refuses to utilize them-- and I've heard of plenty of scenarios where that occurs.As an SEO, it can be overwhelming that your content group doesn't wish to utilize this: "Don't you want traffic?!" However as someone who leads a content team, I understand why they're frequently rejected.
Include them in the planning process.
Nobody likes to be micromanaged, and thorough material briefs can in some cases seem like micromanaging. One excellent method to prevent this is by bringing them along for the process. Make material briefs a collaboration in between SEO and Content.
For example, get in touch with the Material Lead and see if they 'd want to take a seat with you to produce the material quick design template together. By each of you bringing your special knowledge to the table, it can feel less like determining and more like collaboration (plus, you'll probably end up with a better brief template that way).
Make it clear that not all material needs to be search material.
SEO Managers live and breathe the natural search channel, however content teams have a more different diet. They take a multi-channel approach to material, and in some cases are even writing material to support post-conversion groups like client success.When working with your content team on this, ensure you stress that this is a brand-new content type that can be added to editorial preparation. Not something that'll change or require to alter the kinds of material they're already writing.
Respect their know-how.
Writing is hard. Doing it well requires immense skill and practice, however regretfully, I've heard numerous SEOs discuss authors as if they didn't know anything, even if they don't know SEO.
As an SEO, you'll get far with your material department merely by appreciating their proficiency. Simply as numerous SEO Supervisors aren't writers, it's unreasonable people to anticipate authors to have the SEO knowledge of a full-time SEO specialist.
Before you execute a material brief procedure, take a seat with the Material Lead and members of the content team to determine their search maturity. What do they actually require your assist with? Trust them with the rest.
Program outcomes.
Among the best methods to get and keep buy-in is by showing outcomes. Show your material group just how much of their traffic is coming from organic search and how, unlike numerous other content discovery channels, that traffic is remaining consistent gradually. Give the author a shout-out when you observe their article ranking on page one.